Art of manufacturing cotton yarn



UNrTEn STATES PATENT Fries.

RUSSELL HANDY, OF MANVILLE, RHODE ISLAND, ASSIGNOR OF ONE-HALF TO GEORGE DRAPER 8r SONS, OF HOPEDALE, MASSACHUSETTS.

ART OF MANUFACTURING COTTON YARN.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 245,294, dated August 9, 1881.

Application filed June 9, 1881.

To all whom it may concern:

Beitknown that I, RUSSELL HANDY, of Manville, county ofProvidence, and State of Rhode Island, have invented an Improvement in the Art of Manufacturing Cotton Yarn; and I do hereby delare that the following specification is a full, clear, and exact description thereof.

This invention has for its object an improved method of manufacturing cotton yarn, where [O by its strength is materially increased and its cost of production decreased.

In ordinary practice, the sliver from the railway-head or drawing-frames is taken to a roving-frame, when it is reduced in size bydrawing, and is twisted only sufficiently to prevent it stretching as it is unwound from the bobbin. The roving so made by one frame is put through one or more similar operations to the one just described until the roving is ot'proper size to be taken to the spinning frame or mule, the draft of which has been so limited as not to exceed twelve to one, or, in other words, the draft of which has not been greater than to draw the roving out twelve times its length. Not more 2 5 than eight to one has been the commonly-established draft, and it has been considered by the best authorities in manufacturing that draft in excess ofsuch amount was injurious in the production of good uniform yarn, and this is an 0 incontrovertible fact where a single roving is applied to the spinning frame or mule. Two rovings have heretofore been combined to be manufactured into yarns; but in all such cases the size of the rovings respectively has been 5 reduced before subjecting them to the spinning frame or mule by prior operations, so that the aggregated two rovings were equal only in size to a single roving, suitable for making, with the established regulation draft, the re- 40 quired number of yarn, and in manufacturing such combined rovings into yarn the draft has not been increased over what would be employed in manufacturing into the same number of yarn a single roving of double the size.

5 Every additional operation for the reduction of the size of roving not onlyinvolves the employment of expensive machinery, but weakens the product from the effect of the strain to which the fibers of the cotton are subjected in being drawn upon or past each other in the roving-machinery.

(No model.)

- I have discovered that by combining two rovings, each ofwhich is,say, No.3;, orthesizethat would be properto employ to makeits-standard number of, say, No. 28 yarn with a draft of, say, eight to-one, I can, doubling the draftsay, sixteen to oneproduce the same number of yarn that would be obtained from either of the single rovings by the regulation draft, and that such yarn will be of greatly-increased strength and improved quality as to evenness. By this method I greatly economize the manufacture of yarns by dispensing with all the intermediate mechanical operations which have been heretofore invariablyemployed and deemed essential for the proportionate reduction of the size of the roving when yarns from two com biued rovings have been made. Moreover, I have found that the same general law is applicable to the manufacture of yarn of any given number, by combining two rovings of any number and proportionably increasing the draft over the regulation draft for such single roving, so as to produce the required number ofyarns-as, for example, ifl take two coarser rovings of No. 2, I can produce a No.

28 yarn by giving to such combined rovings a draft of, say, twenty-eight to one. I have by my process practically drawn two combined rovings on the spinning-frame with a draft of from eighteen to twenty to one, and I have also spun yarn with success from two rovings with a draft as high as twenty-six to one, and

I am convinced that by combining three rovings the draft can be proportionably increased with excellent results.

In the manufacture offine yarns, where double roving has heretofore been used of high numbers, I propose to use coarse roving, and thus dispense with many expensive machines 0 and the labor required to attend the same and the cost of power to drive them, and at the same time obtain a better product as the result of diminishing the number of deteriorat ing mechanical operations. I have taken the 5 same roving, suitable for both fine and coarse yarns, and drawn it singly with ordinary draft, and drawn it doubled with double draft, and, as a result, all numbers or sizes of roving treated by my process last referred to have been made so much more even that the variation in the size of one thread compared with others has been reduced one-half over the ordinary variation, and the strength of the yarn has been increased from ten to twenty-five per cent. I have practiced this in several mills with this invariable result.

I prefer, for the greatest economy in the production of roviu gs, to produce them on the slubbing-frame by the process described in my patent of the United States, N 0. 166,001, dated July 27, 1875, to which reference may be had; but the rovin gs may be produced by the process common before my said patent drawingframes being employed; but in this, my present invention, as in that, ordinary drawingframes may be dispensed with.

I claim- The improvement in the art of manufacturing any prescribed number or size of cotton In testimony whereof I have signed my name 0 to this specification in the presence ot'two subscribing witnesses.

RUSSELL HANDY. Witnesses:

THOMAS RoBrNsoN, JAMES S. UTLEY. 

